The processing of many products particularly meat products requires that they be transported or conveyed through one or more processing chambers or zones in which chambers or zones they are processed in various ways such as by cooking, smoking, curing, chilling and the like. Some form of support apparatus must be provided for supporting the products as they are being transported through the various zones or chambers. In the particular case of meat products such as pork bellies, it has been found that the most satisfactory results are produced by hanging the pieces of pork belly from one end, so that they hang free in a vertical position. In this way, the atmosphere within each zone or chamber is free to circulate all around the product, and provide uniform processing. In the past, the hanging of such meat products has usually been carried out on devices known as "combs". These combs were somewhat like coat hangers, that it to say they consisted usually of a triangular wire frame-work having a central upper hook, by means of which the frame-work could be suspended on a conveyor, and having a series of needles projecting laterally from one side one the structure. The needles were forced through the flesh of the pork belly adjacent one end, and the support and pork belly were suspended by means of the hook from a suitable hanger bar on a conveyor for transporting through the chambers or zones. It is customary for each pork belly to be cut into two or more pieces. As a result, in a great many cases, a pork belly, which has been cut into say three pieces, must then be hung, by three separate combs--one hanging each of the three pieces, and each of the three separate combs must then be individually manually hooked onto a supporting bar, in turn carried on a conveyor, and thus transported through the processing chamber.
The reverse process must, of course, be carried out at the end of the processing line and the bellies removed from the "combs", or "decombed".
All of these combs must then be cleaned, and returned to the upstream end of the chamber or line, for use with further pork bellies. The cost of producing a suitable quantity of such combs was considerable. In addition, the repeated manual handling of the combs involved continuous possibilities for inadvertent injury, from the plurality of sharp needles on each of the combs.
In addition however, the speed at which the processing line could be run was partly dependent upon the rate at which the pork bellies could be attached to the combs, and suspended from the support bars by individual operators. This factor tended to restrict the speed of processing. Consequently, even though it is entirely practical to build a processing line in which the chambers have relatively large cross-sectional dimensions, and in which the atmosphere is re-circulated by fan system of suitable power, the actual volume of pork bellies that could be put through such a chamber was still, nonetheless restricted by the speed at which individuals could attach the pork bellies to the combs and then hang the combs. Naturally, if larger chambers could be built for operating at greater capacities, and if it were possible to attach pork bellies at a sufficiently high rate of speed and hang them on the conveyor going through larger chambers at an appropriate speed, it would be possible to greatly increase the rate of processing of such meat products and thus, correspondingly reduce the cost. In addition, Certain other advantages may be obtained by processing facilities of increased size, namely that the consistency of the processing operation could be controlled within closer tolerances, thereby insuring a more uniform product, increasing customer satisfaction and reducing wastage.